Information for Backbenchers on Statements

James Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

As another new Member, I want to reflect on some of the fundamental principles that the motion that we are debating represents. It raises some fundamental questions about the nature of our parliamentary democracy and the role of Parliament in modern society. Why is this evening’s debate and the motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) so important? All hon. Members would recognise that the gap between this place and those who elected us here—between Parliament and ordinary people—has grown into a chasm over the past few years. That is why this debate is so important.

In my first few weeks as a Member of Parliament, I have spent time reflecting on what my constituents want me to do in this place. Clearly, the people of Halesowen and Rowley Regis want me to stand up for their interests. However, having spent time on the doorstep during the election, I believe that there is also a sense among our constituents that, despite all their cynicism about Parliament, they want this place still to be the place where big decisions are made and where the life of the nation is debated. They want us to hold the Government of the day to account and to ask difficult questions that probe and challenge them. I believe that, despite their reservations, our constituents want Parliament to reassert its role as the custodian of the national interest, which is why I believe this evening’s debate is so important.

However, I recognise that, as other right hon. and hon. Members have said, there are difficult challenges with reinstating the principle that Ministers should come to Parliament to make their key announcements. As other hon. Members have pointed out, we are living in an information age, when information is spread around the world and around this country at high velocity, and where social networking sites can instantly produce informed—or sometimes not-so-informed—debates about the issues of the day. We have Twitter and blogs, and, as others have pointed out, we have a 24-hour media culture that demands instant comment. It is insatiable in its desire for instant comment.

Modern democracy and this Parliament sit in a world that is moving forward at a frenetic pace. Some developments of the information age that impact on the processes of Parliament are positive. We have a more informed public, for example—a public who are better able to access the workings of government. We have a much higher degree of transparency about the workings of government and Parliament, but there is much more to do.

I welcome my hon. Friend’s motion. It raises questions about how to reinforce and develop the traditional role of Parliament in the context of the modern world that I have described. Parliament must still play—it has to—its traditional role of holding the Executive to account. It is in the nature of the debates we hold in this House—tonight’s is a particularly good example of Parliament in action, where there is some degree of cross-party consensus about the issues—that the very act of having elected representatives interacting in a civilised way can act as a check against this frenetic pace of the debate going on in the outside world where information moves around so quickly.

I conclude by recognising, as I think all hon. Members would recognise, that we cannot turn the clock back to some kind of golden age in which Parliament is, as the Leader of the House said, the main channel of communication out to the nation. Those days have gone. However, Parliament needs to reassert its traditional role—I view this as an important part of my role as a new MP—as the place where important matters are debated and where the Executive are held to account. That is why I will support my hon. Friend’s motion.